No Smooshing! (From the book No Smooshing!) Gary E. Anderson
www.abciowa.com
High school football is in full swing, and it’s fun to sit in
the stands on a crisp autumn night and watch our kids play. It
can also be the source of some pretty funny comments by the
fans, especially mothers who may be watching the only football
games they’ll ever witness—or care to witness, for that matter.
For instance, during one recent game, our cheerleaders were
standing with their backs to the field, leading a cheer of “hold
‘em, hold ‘em!” when one of the fathers in the stands yelled
out, “Girls! I think that’s illegal!”
He was right, of course, since our team happened to be on
offense at the time.
But the real gem of that night was an observation made by the
halfback’s mother. After watching her son trying to run
off-tackle twice in a row, only to get caught up in a tangled
pile of bodies at the line of scrimmage, she said, “You know, it
seems to me they’d do a lot better if they wouldn’t all just
smoosh together like that.”
Although her comment brought gales of laughter from everyone
around her, and the rest of the night was punctuated by various
people yelling “no smooshing!” toward the players on the field,
I had to admit—the lady was right. Our plays would have gone
better if everyone just stopped smooshing.
All the next week, that “no smooshing” comment kept playing
through my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more I
realized that life itself is like that football game. The key to
success often lies in our ability to avoid getting caught up in
the tangle of everyday problems and to break into the open
field—in other words, to avoid smooshing.
That unintentionally profound statement also proved to be the
kind of wisdom that only comes about when a person doesn’t know
enough about a situation to know that something is “impossible.”
There were perfectly logical reasons for all the smooshing going
on out there on the field, but that mom didn’t know about any of
them—so she came up with a simple solution to the problem. I
could relate, since I’d experienced a perfect example of that
when my friend Digger and I were still in high school.
We had decided that we wanted to write and sell jingles for the
radio commercials. Filled with youthful enthusiasm, we threw
ourselves into our quest and before a month had passed, we’d
already sold three. Then one night, during the recording session
for our third jingle, an advertising executive happened to tell
us how amazing it was that two kids could have done the
impossible by selling jingles—when everyone knew it could only
be done by the most accomplished, professional musicians. That
was the last jingle we ever sold.
We’d stopped running in the open field and bogged down in the
tangle of bodies at the line of scrimmage—we smooshed. So if you
have a dream, hold it up to the light, keep your eyes on it at
all times, and above all—never let anyone tell you that what
you’re trying to do is impossible.
And whenever you find yourself beginning to lose heart—stop,
take a deep breath, and repeat these words: “No smooshing!”
© 2004. Gary E. Anderson. All rights reserved.
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